Inspirational Saturday

Putting one step ahead of Albert Einstein The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” Alain Aspect was born in 1947 in Agen, France. Ph.D. 1983 from Paris-Sud University, Orsay, France. Professor at Université Paris-Saclay and ÉcolePolytechnique Palaiseau France. Alain developed a setup to close an important loophole. He was able to switch the measurement settings after an entangled pair had left its source, so the original setting that existed when they were emitted could not affect the result. John F. Clauser was born in 1942 in Pasadena, CA, USA. Ph.D. 1969 from Columbia University, New York, USA. Research Physicist, J.F. Clauser& Assoc., Walnut Creek, CA, USA. John Clauser built an apparatus that emitted two entangled photons at a time, each towards a filter that tested their polarizati...

The football-mad town of Chakdah in West Bengal saw a dreamy-eyed young girl watch the 1992 Women's Cricket World Cup on TV, and this inspired her to take up cricket as a sport. Before that, Jhulan, as a youngster, had genuinely enjoyed watching and playing football in the small streets of her town. But after the 1997 Women's World Cup, in which the final, which was played between Australia and New Zealand, truly inspired her to take up the sport, and she started playing cricket full-time at the age of 15. Moreover, the small town of Chakdah had no cricket facilities, and Jhulan had to go to Kolkata in order to undergo training. This meant she had to travel two and a half hours every day by the local train, so that she could make it in time for training at 8am on the Vivekananda Ground in Kolkata. Easier said than done, she woke up at 4.15 everyday so that she could board the local which left Chakdah at 5.05 sharp, and reached a small local station in the big city in Kolkata. A...